Love, Unbroken
by snapslikethis
Summary: The Evans family as told through Lily's interactions with her mother's old pearl necklace.


"Ssh, darling girl," implores a young mother to the restless baby on her lap, "we're almost done here."

Lily, however, has no concept of time, or that her whimpers are disrupting the sermon. She cares only for her mum's soothing voice and bouncing knee, and hands holding her firmly in place when she'd rather be exploring the mysteries beneath the wooden pew in front of them. She squirms again, frowns. Opens her mouth, intent in voicing her displeasure at this imprisonment, only to be distracted when a sunbeam shines through the stained glass, refracting off each of the perfect, tiny balls strung around her mum's neck.

Lily is enthralled.

She tugs on the beads, curious, but her mum bats her hand away—gently, hoping to avoid a tantrum in the middle of service. But Lily, stubborn Lily, will not be thwarted: she rather desperately wants those pretty, shiny beads, and she wants them _now_. Before her mum can blink, her two chubby fists curl around the necklace and yank with all the force she can muster.

The necklace gives; Lily holds it up, smiling in delight, eyes flashing in triumph.

Her victory is short lived, for the necklace has snapped in the middle, not at the clasp, and her precious beads cascade off the broken strings. A chorus of tiny pings sounds as they skate away from her, bouncing and scattering across the wooden floor.

Her mum gasps, startling Lily, and her treasures are _lost_.

She bursts into noisy tears.

Her mum rushes down the center aisle, through the double doors, and out of the sanctuary. They pace the foyer, mother comforting her distraught daughter, both biting back tears at the loss of the beloved necklace.

When the double doors open, finally unleashing a swarm of parishioners, Lily's tears have subsided into hiccups. Her mother receives several sympathetic pats on the shoulder, and a few judgmental glances, which she ignores; several people hand over beads as they pass by.

After the tiny room is emptied, her parents return to the sanctuary. Lily sits in another pew, this time in her elder sister's overly firm grasp. She sucks on a biscuit, content, oblivious both to her sister's indignant lecture on being naughty in church and her mother and father, crawling under the pews, dirtying their Sunday best as they try to gather every errant pearl.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily's mother's lap is second only to her father's as her favorite place in the world, and it is here she sits while her mum tries to ready herself for an evening out. Though Lily will not recognize the music playing on her mother's turntable as Miles Davis until years later, her two year old sensibility identifies it as decidedly cheerful music.

She hums enthusiastically, if a bit off-key, along the various melody lines.

Lily is handed a distraction—a hairbrush—and makes a proper study of it: tasting it, of course, and pressing the bristles against her cheek, and trying to comb out her short red wisps. Properly diverted, the toddler does not notice her mum surreptitiously opening the vanity drawer. She deftly dodges a swipe from the hairbrush—Lily, trying to brush _her_ meticulous curls—and fishes out a long, black velvet box. It takes time, but she manages to open it one-handed, and extract her new set of old pearls.

After they'd returned to the church—twice—and had only managed to recover three quarters of the pearls, she'd spent months convincing herself that a pearl bracelet would be quite as nice as her necklace had been. Except it wasn't, and she knew it, but what could she do? She'd rather have a bracelet than a sack full of pearls. Her husband, bless him or damn him, though they couldn't anything like afford it, had paid a jeweler to have them properly restrung, replacing the missing beads with new.

He'd surprised her with it this morning—an anniversary present.

She's startled out of her reverie when the hairbrush clatters against the wooden vanity top. Lily stares at the mirror, mesmerized by the glint of the lamp against the pearls as her mum's reflection works the fastening.

"Pwetty," she croons, turning to better inspect the necklace. Her mum grabs both hands, one of which was already reaching forward, and pulls them to her lips for a kiss.

"They _are_ pretty, darling girl, aren't they?" replies her mum, smiling down at her. Lily nods. "We shan't touch, though. They're Mummy's."

"Pwetty."

"They were Gran's, you know. And now they're mine. Someday, if you'd like, they'll be yours."

"Gran?'" asks the toddler hopefully. Gran means biscuits and songs and the kitty and _more_ biscuits. Lily is always delighted to see her.

"Yes, Gran. She and sissy will be back soon. Then you can play together _all _evening. I daresay she'll brings sweets for you. You'll be a good girl for her, yes?"

But Lily is pointing at the necklace again, stopping short of touching it.

"Pwetty."

Her mum tilts Lily's head and bends down to kiss her forehead. "When you're older, darling girl. They're yours. Would you like that?"

Lily nods solemnly—without any real comprehension—when her husband enters the room, and the pearls are forgotten. She squeals, scrambles down to the floor, and runs forward, for a hug.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"Mummy, where you at?" Lily calls as she teeters down the hallway.

She's been working hard, for _ages _and _ages, _and she's keen to show off the finished efforts of her labor.

"Kitchen!"

She charges down the hallway, stumbling twice, stopping a third time to readjust her dress. She enters through the swinging door with a flourish, her arms flung wide.

"Ta dah!" she announces, and begins to twirl. "Wook, Mummy. I'm pretty!"

Her mum looks up from the basket of wash to survey her daughter: Dressed in Petunia's Easter dress, several sizes too large, on backwards and inside out. Her feet are dwarfed by her mother's pumps, and her doll dangles from one hand, dragging the floor. Make-up is smeared inexpertly over her face. Of course, the pearls are slung over her neck.

"I _knew _it was awfully quiet back there," her mother replies, though not unkindly. "What's all this? Are you playing fashion show?"

"No!"

"Are you a princess?"

"No!" Lily beams. "I'm a mummy, wike you!"

"And a damn pretty one, too."

Her mum reaches for the Polaroid she keeps handy for moments like these. She asks Lily to twirl again, snaps a blurry picture, freezing this moment in time.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily is getting married today.

True, she gets married nearly every day under the filtered shade of the large oak in the back garden. And true, she usually humors her sister for a mere fifteen minutes—half hour on a good day—before her patience expels itself and she abandons their game to climb the tree, but today is special: Tuney has snuck her Christmas shoes past Mummy so she can be a princess wife.

Except Tuney needs mum's pearls to be a proper princess wife, and she has very wisely sent her younger sister to fetch them. At five, Lily knows that sneaking is wrong, that she'll be in loads of trouble if she's caught. It's just, Tuney promised that she could go first at hop scotch, and two games of checkers. When that bribe didn't work, Tuney dared her to do it.

How is she supposed to resist _that_?

Lily slips through the back door quietly as she can, listening hard to pinpoint her mum's location: living room. Tiptoeing through the kitchen, past the room's entrance, Lily slowly makes her way down the hall, taking care to miss the squeaky places.

Finally, she slips through the door to her parent's room and approaches the vanity. Lily opens the drawer slowly, a millimeter at a time, wincing as wood grates against wood. She reminds herself to run a bar of soap along the bottom, like dad taught her, between now and next time they'll need the pearls.

Except it's too late, because her mum's voice sounds behind her, causing her to jump.

"Best to open it all at once, darling, rather than dragging it out like that. Try timing it to the wireless next time."

_Busted._

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily idly wonders if people wear black because it's a horrid, nasty color, or if it's earned that reputation because people only wear it to funerals. Either way, Lily privately resolves never to wear black ever, ever again.

Gran is _gone_, and Lily swings her legs in the pew, desperately wishing there was one in front of her so she could give it a good, hard kick.

_Gran_.

It's the same church, Lily knows, where her baby-self broke the pearls. She imagines the broken pieces of her heart falling out her body and onto the floor, rolling away from her like those pearls must have done.

She knows, also, that it will be impossible to get them all back.

Gran is _gone._

The tears she's been so keen to avoid spill over, wetting her cheeks, and she can't wipe them away because her hands are occupied. She trembles, heaving in deep, heavy gasps, though there's not enough air, not nearly enough: Gran is gone—_dead_—and her heart is broken.

Her sister is being too nice to her, holding her hand like this, and everything is not-not-_not_ okay. They are bookended by their parents: Mummy on Tuney's side, Daddy on hers, holding her other hand. She squeezes until she can't feel it anymore.

She glances at her mum. Through blurry eyes, Lily recognizes the pearls around her neck.

_Gran's _pearls.

She hiccups.

Her mum clutches those pearls like a lifeline, a matching river streaming down her face, though her mum's is tainted black with make-up.

Fitting_._

Lily pulls her hands free and tugs at her collar of her dress, wishing she had pearls, too.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily's Mum is loads of things, but being a _bloody-short-order-cook _isn't on the list.

Least, that's what she'd told her girls as they went through their respective picky eater phases. Dinner was never a battle at Lily's house, really, but the rule was simple: if you don't like what's served, that's your prerogative, but you won't get anything else.

You know, because Mum isn't a _bloody-short-order-cook_.

Except on Christmas morning, when that's _exactly _what she is, waking at dawn to make each person's favorite meal—anything goes—and serving it for breakfast after first presents are opened.

Now that the girls are older—Petunia, thirteen, and Lily, ten—the tradition has evolved. All four Evanses cram into their tiny kitchen. They jostle for the prime spot at the counter, huddle over the overflowing stove, tasting their respective works in progress. Once their dishes are finished—always at the same time, which Lily attributes to magic, and it is, just of the Mum variety—they troop into the living room.

Still pajama clad, they settle on the floor between the cozy fireplace and tinsel draped tree and tuck into their Christmas feast. It is their unique Christmas tradition, Lily's second favorite.

It is abso_lutely_ brilliant.

She has finished her toast and kippers and, patting her faux distended belly, leans against her father's shoulder. Mum is still working her way through a plate piled high with salted chips. Petunia, uncharacteristically undignified, sits cross-legged, hunched over her plate of triple chocolate pancakes; raspberry jam tinges her cheeks. Dad sops up the dredges of his stew with thick slices of buttered bread.

After every bite is devoured, her parents clear the plates and, in a role reversal, tend to the dishes while the girls start on Lily's _first_ favorite Christmas tradition: the scavenger hunt for the 'big' presents.

Big is relative, really, since size hasn't anything to do with it—the hidden gift is either the one each girl wants most or, some years, the one their parents are most excited to give. The rules are simple: each girl has her own gift to find, one clue for every year old, no going out of order, and presents are somewhere on the premises.

Though Petunia has more clues, she manages to work them out first. Finds a turntable and four vinyl records in the back of the family car. Lily is mad with jealousy, or nearly, because she can't work out the last clue. She glances at her mum in despair, who meets her gaze before deliberately twisting a pearl between her fingers.

Her mother looks at her meaningfully. It's a gesture Lily has seen a dozen times, a _hundred _times. Maybe a thousand something clicks. _Pearls._

Lily races down the hall, darts into her parents' room, and whips the old drawer open. She finds a miniature version of her mother's velvet box, but it's _her_ name, Lily, on the tag. Junior pearls, some might call them, or starter pearls—but Lily doesn't care. It's a rite of passage, like getting her ears pierced last year. Tuney's had hers for _ages, _and they're absolutely brilliant.

"Do you like them, darling girl?" her mother asks. This is de-ja-vu, her mother at the door, her kneeling before the vanity drawer. Lily rushes to give her a hug.

"Love them! Can I wear them now?"

"'Course you can." Her mother inclines her head toward the vanity. "Sit down, then."

Lily's eyes widen, but she complies. Her mum moves to stand behind her.

"You're growing up, you know. Not my darling little girl anymore." Her mum brushes aside the tangled mess of dark red hair. Rat's nest, Tuney teases her most mornings, though not today, being Christmas and all.

"Can I wear them to school next week?" asks Lily eagerly.

Janice will be fit with jealousy, Lily knows, and Elizabeth has had pearls for two years and wears them three times a week. Her mother furrows her brow, pretending to contemplate the matter, before breaking into a smile.

"'Course you can. Just no, you know, climbing trees with them on."

Fair enough. Lily nods, and grins at her Mum's reflection. Practiced hands fasten the clasp behind her neck.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Her parents are at the grocers, Petunia has escaped to her Yvonne's, and Lily has been left to entertain herself—sans magic, since the teacup incident—in the house that no longer feels like home.

She can't work out if it's she who's changed, or the house. Both, probably, but it doesn't matter. She feels a stranger here, in this place that has never betrayed her before. It _hurts._

Every trip back sharpens the contrast between her worlds. While she's not entirely welcome in the magical world—_mudblood_—she no longer fits in this one, either—_freak_.

Despite her sister's pronouncements, her parents love her, adore her, but even their love and enthusiasm cannot mask the truth: an entire year's worth of inside jokes, tele programs, arguments, game nights, suppers, and family outings have transpired, and Lily has missed them all.

She's never felt more disconnected from anything, has never felt so hemmed in.

Really, she feels like a right prat for all these _bloody_ feelings, but she can't exactly help it, can she?

She wanders aimlessly between the rooms, searching for something, anything, to pull her out of this. Subconsciously, she is drawn to her mother's room, that old battered vanity. The worn velvet box.

Lily lets the pearls run through her hand, spins each of the beads between her fingers. She brushes aside her hair and wraps them around her neck, fumbles with the clasp. Satisfied, she props her chin in her hand, elbow on the vanity top, and leans forward to examine her reflection.

She's got her mum's eyes.

Her dad's wild, frizzy hair.

Her dad's nose, too, though she owes the freckles on it to her mum's fair complexion.

Her mother's ears, which is an odd thing to inherit, but there you go.

She and her sister share the same crooked smile—Gran's crooked smile, actually. Said smile appears on her face.

She is her mother's daughter, and her grandmother's granddaughter, and these are their pearls.

She is a witch, yes, but she is also an Evans; the thought inexplicably comforts her.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"So, this is your mum's room?" asks Mary, opening the door to her parents' bedroom.

"Yeah."

"She got an alcohol in here?"

"It wouldn't be in _here_."

"Cigarettes?"

"Doubt it. We can look though."

They are bored. Sneaking. Looking for something rebellious, scandalous. Something illicit to ingest, perhaps, though if such a thing presented itself, neither of them would know what to do with it. Petunia's room yielded nothing interesting, save some juicy titbits in her journal about a boy named Daniel, which Lily would definitely taunt her for later.

Mary eyes the vanity. "Oi, does your mum have diamonds we can try on?"

"No," says Lily, blushing. Diamonds aren't the sort of thing her family can afford, but she doesn't want Mary to know that.

But it's _Mary_, and she recognizes the embarrassment.

"Neither does mine," Mary confesses. "I've only seen them in the movies. My mum's got pearls though."

Lily perks. "Oi, so does mine!" She rifles through the drawer and presents the pearls for inspection. "Here."

"They're lovely." Pearls are hardly scandalous, but they _were_ lovely, and they deserved the compliment.

Lily shrugged, sounding cooler than she felt.

"They're just pearls, but I think they were my Grans..." She _knew _they were her Grans, of course, but she didn't want to seem overly earnest...even if it _was_ just Mary.

"Can I try them on?"

Her Mum would _murder _her if anything happened to them, but her parents have driven Petunia to the cinema with her older, cooler friends, and they're so bloody bored, and it's _Mary_.

"Sure, MacDonald, but if you break them, I'll give you boils when we get back to school."

"I believe you," Mary says, grinning. "I'll be careful."

She holds out her hand expectantly, and Lily hands the necklace over. Mary puts it on, delicately, as promised, and surveys herself in the mirror. She makes pouts, fluffs her hair.

Inspiration strikes. "Oi, I know," Lily says, "We can do makeovers...Muggle makeovers!"

Their interests in these things—hair, beauty charms—have only recently been piqued. They'd picked up a few beauty charms from the older girls, but they've had no opportunity to experiment with make-up.

"Brilliant!"

"C'mon, then," Lily prompts, gesturing for Mary to follow her. "Put those back first, before we forget. My Mum would murder us both."

Once the box was put away, Lily leads her back down the hall.

"We can nick Tuney's make-up."

"Won't she murder us too?"

"Probably, but isn't that half the fun?" Lily asks, a devilish smile appearing on her face.

Mary matches her grin.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Petunia has worn the pearls before—a dance, graduation from typing school, an occasional special date—but it has always been nothing more or less than borrowing their mother's pearls. Earlier, as Lily watched her mother drape them around her sister's neck, careful to avoid mussing her elaborate hair, Lily recognized that this was inherently different.

Now, as Tuney and Vernon are at the front, making it official, she grabs James's hand and tries not to cry. It bloody fucking _hurts, _because she ought to be up there, lavender dress be damned, and she's _not_.

She tries to swallow that thought down; today isn't a day for bitterness. Her sister _is_ radiant, truly, and Lily would be awful to begrudge her sister such evident happiness. It's not the pearls that make her lovely. Rather, it's the entire ensemble: the dress, the veil, and mostly, the smile—she's never seen Petunia smile so much.

_Lovely_ is word Lily would rarely would ascribe to Petunia, but it's somehow, strangely fitting.

And James holds her hand all the while, tracing back and forth along her wrist. Lily's looking forward, but she can feel James's appraising gaze assessing whether or not she's alright.

Another thought creeps forward, unbidden, something her mother had said, earlier. Maybe _she'll_ be doing this in the not-so-distant future.

Her.

James.

Married.

_Married_?

She tunes out the preacher and indulges the fantasy, trying to see if it suits. It doesn't, at first, but she realizes it's because they would never get married in a church, and she wouldn't want all this fuss—a long veil or embroidered layers of a heavy, bustled dress. She wouldn't mind the pearls.

James. Married. It doesn't scare her at all. When did _that _happen?

But it's not about her today. Or James. Or them, at all,though she's never been more grateful for his presence. She clears her thoughts, trying to pay attention as Dursley slips a ring onto her sister's finger.

Still, she leans into James. Rests her head on his shoulder. Warmth spreads from the spot where he kisses her hair.

Her sister _really_ does look lovely.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Same church as before.

Same awful wooden box at the front, too.

Same pastor with a receding hairline and three hairy moles on his chin.

Same pearls.

Except it's not the same, not at all: it's so much fucking worse.

She'd had to amend her vow—the one about wearing black—when she'd gone off to magic school.

She'd amended it to say that she'd never wear black to a funeral again. And here she sits, true to her word, dressed in a navy blue number.

She wishes she'd just sucked it up and worn black, because now navy blue is forever ruined, too.

Her sister is not beside her. Rather, she's across the aisle, in her own pew, with her own family—Vernon—in her own cocoon of grief.

Damn them _both_.

It is James on her left and Mary, her right, who keep her together today. At least, tethered.

Mum and Daddy are not bookending their daughters, protecting them. They are at rest in boxes at the front, indifferent to their daughters' suffering.

Damn them, too, for leaving her like this.

Lily is wearing the pearls. No idea _why_ she thought it would help, because they aren't a lifeline at all.

They are choking her, and she is dying with grief, and she wants to rip them off and watch them bounce across the floor. James catches this, pries her hand off, holding both of hers in his own.

Much as they mean to her—the pearls—she would surrender them forever if it meant she could her mum call her "darling girl" one more time.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily is getting married today.

Not to her sister—her sister isn't here. She's not the groom, who is somewhere secret, hopefully _not_ getting smashed off his arse. His location is a Marauder secret, the idiots had informed Mary, and she smiles.

She takes a breath and opens the velvet box.

It's been a year, and she's not ready to wear them again. Despite her pronouncements to Petunia, as they argued, that she would wear them every day, she can hardly stand to look at them.

Irony, _that_.

She's spent the last year burying her grief in the war. In _her_ war, her cause. She's steadfastly ignored the pearls, her dead parents and estranged sister.

Today isn't a day for any of _that_, because she is nineteen and she is marrying the absolute love of her life.

_James_.

Her mother was right about her getting married sooner, rather than later. They aren't going for a church, or matching centerpieces. She's not all fussed up in layers and layers of satin and lace, but she does have the pearls.

It's going to be absolutely perfect.

Her Mum and her Gran cannot be here, and her sister _won't_, but she will wear the pearls they all got married in, and that will have to be enough.

A tear slips down her cheek, just one bittersweet tear. Because she's bursting with happiness, really. It's just that this bit—missing them—it's so bloody _difficult_.

Mary understands, though. Mary _always_ understands, and blots that damned tear with a kiss to her cheek.

She pulls Lily's shaking hands away from the necklace and fastens the clasp.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"You love those things," James says as he watches her from their bed. They've been married for two months. It's more or less the same as before, except she teases him when he calls her Evans.

He assures her he'll never stop calling her Evans; she'll hold him to that.

She's got her mum's busted old vanity, not nice enough for Petunia's house. It suits her fine, though it feels like a terribly _adult_ thing to own. She pulls the pearls out, to look at them sometimes. She rarely puts them on.

"I do," she admits.

"Why don't you wear them?"

"My mom always said that 'classy girls' wore pearls."

"That explains it, then," James says, grinning at her reflection.

She sticks her tongue out at him.

"Really, though. Why not?" he presses.

She sighs.

"Because it _hurts, _James. Every memory I have of them is tied up in _her, _and_—"_

He surges off the bed and hunches over her to give her an awkward hug.

"Ssh. I know, love. I'm sorry." He holds her like that for a bit, rubbing circles on her back, before he muffles into her hair, "It's your choice, Evans, but if you love them, you should give them new memories."

"You think?"

"I do. Maybe it's time to give them a new legacy."

She closes the box.

"I'll think about it, yeah?"

"Mm," James muffles, but he is distracted by her neck, and the pearls become the last thing on either of their minds.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Eventually, as she often does, she takes James's advice to heart.

It starts at Mary's wedding. She wears them as she stands up and watches her best friend marry a sweet, unassuming, honest bloke, trading MacDonald for Cattermole.

After a particularly successful mission, they've saved lives and they're riding high and everyone is going to an out of the way pub to celebrate—at least the younger Order members. They pop home to freshen up, get distracted in the shower. She puts on the pearls, as she dresses again, and catches James's knowing smile in the mirror.

She begins to wear them on every date, even if the date is take-away on their sofa. She wears them out to the cinema, to the pub, for a hike, until she loses count.

It works_, _after a fashion, though she flat-out refuses to wear them to funerals—her pearls are only happy memories from here on out.

She wears the pearls—just the pearls—on Valentine's day. James _really_ likes that.

On Christmas morning, they make a mess in the kitchen, carrying on the tradition her parents had started. Their breakfast is burnt, barely edible, but she wears her pearls as they plop in front of the fire and stuff themselves silly, burnt food and all, while they wait for the boys to arrive.

She and James are in a brutal, horrific war that's not getting any better. Happy moments aren't given out at the corner store—they've got to demand them, carve them out, will them into existence.

They do just that.

For every smile, every joke, every twirl in the kitchen at two in the morning, it is James, and Lily, and her pearls.

-ooo00O00oooo-

And suddenly, without notice, everything is swiftly, irrevocably altered. The entire trajectory of their lives have changed, because now it's James, Lily, and her pearls, and their _baby._

She is bloody _pregnant_, and they are completely fucked.

He is with her when she does the charm—it's not the sort of thing she could handle without him right there, beside her. She doesn't know how anyone can. It's just not _them, _to do something like this alone, and he's squeezing her left hand as she does the charm with her right.

They're completely fucked, because it's _purple_—which means _yes_, and _boy_. She sobs in terror. But they make eye contact and know, just as suddenly, that they can't give him up.

Don't ask them why, like Sirius did, because they couldn't tell you.

They abandon the war, their cause, their comrades. They _have _to, though it nearly kills them.

The baby—their son—becomes their new mission. _L__ittle snitch_, they've taken to calling him.

Afraid they'll get lost in the shuffle, Lily wears the pearls as they move into the cottage and erect the wards to keep them safe. As safe as they can be.

She can't bring herself to take them off. Not when she's vomiting at three in the morning, James behind her, pulling her hair back. Nor when she's eating a third helping of pancakes at four in the afternoon.

They're a talisman, her pearls, keeping them all safe. Maybe it makes her feel closer to her mum.

She's going to be a mum.

Her left hand curls absently around the necklace.

They paint the nursery yellow.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Harry is here, and everything has changed.

She never stops talking to him, but neither does James. She tells him about grand dad, and mum. Gran. Her mates. His wild uncles.

Every story she can think of, though he's too young to get any of it.

She loses herself for hours, memorizing every facial feature and tiny gesture.

She learns how to become a Mum, and James a Dad, by trial and error. They miss their parents desperately, make loads of mistakes. Lose their tempers at three in the morning when he will _not_ stop bloody _crying_.

But they sort it out, how to be a proper family. Her pearls are their constant companion.

They were starved for happy moments before, when they were fighting. But here, shut away, though the war still weighs on their minds, it's burned to a dull ache when Harry is awake.

_Harry_.

Everything, even the war, is eclipsed by his smile.

She is a mum, and Harry is everything, and the happy moments come faster than she can keep up.

It's a good problem to have.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Harry is eight months old when he first breaks the pearls.

She is multitasking, poorly, pancakes with her wand, the paper levitated in front of her, and Harry. Harry, fussy and teething, who refuses to be put down, rests on her hip. She's not paying him enough attention, but she's _hungry _and breakfast can't wait for James to get out of the shower. There's been an attack, and she's devouring the grim details, searching for names.

She's trying not to step on the bloody cat.

Harry reaches, quicker than she can blink, and pulls them straight off her neck. She cries out as the beads scatter everywhere, even into the bloody pancake batter.

She steps on the damn cat, which skids away, slipping on the scattered beads.

Harry bursts into noisy tears.

James bursts into the kitchen, wild eyed, wondering what in the bloody hell is going on.

He can't bloody see anythingwithout his glasses, but he's looking at her expectantly, and he's _starkers_. Bloody starkers and dripping wet all over the cat, who'd tried to take refuge behind him.

She wanted to cry a moment before, but bursts out laughing instead.

She hands off her baby to her husband, summons the pearls, and sorts the necklace to rights with a quick repair charm.

Really, being a witch has its perks.

-ooo00O00oooo-

It's been two weeks since the first time, and Lily reluctantly puts her necklace away back in the velvet case, back in the vanity drawer. She charms the drawer shut, too, because Harry has both learned how to crawl _and_ open drawers.

_Nothing _is sacred.

She's got to put the pearls away, because Harry is delighted with this new trick—break Mummy's beads—and he's broken them nearly every day.

At least she doesn't wear glasses, like poor James. Swiping them off Dada's face is Harry's _second_ favorite game.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily has a date with her husband.

They are still in hiding, and the war is as grim as ever. While they love Harry to the ends of the earth, they are going absolutely mad, and they need a break. They refuse to leave him, though—even for a few hours, even with Padfoot, even on their anniversary.

So Padfoot, best uncle and brother and best mate of all time, has come to babysit while Lily and James pretend their back garden is their favorite restaurant.

Lily wears her favorite dress—James's favorite dress, too—but she frowns when it's a bit snugger in the hips than she remembered.

He meets her at the bottom of the stairs, like a right romantic idiot. He's made Padfoot fetch flowers, which she sets in Petunia's horrible vase. They wave good bye to their baby and walk through the kitchen into the garden.

Lily is amazed, and touched, and _happy_ because James _is _a romantic idiot. He's made them a picnic with chips from their favorite pub, and good, strong alcohol. Even fairy lights twinkle at her from their tree. Miles scratches a melody on the old turntable; she happily hums off-key.

They graze their chips and reminisce about dates of yore.

At eight-thirty, they huddle over the mirror, waving goodnight to Harry, who they can hear babbling from his nursery window, just above them. Sirius winks at them before wiping the mirror clean.

They lie back on the blanket, watch the stars rise and begin to wane. They forget that they are soldiers, then _not_ soldiers, then parents. He is the boy who charmed her when they were seventeen, and she is nothing more or less than a girl with a pretty necklace.

They dance, and twirl, and it's good—_so good_—to be Lily and James again.

In the early hours of the morning, as they're stumbling through the house, trying not to wake their boys, somewhere between the garden and their bedroom, James undoes the clasp of her necklace with his teeth.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"Darling boy," she scolds Harry, exasperated, pulling his hands away from her neck. She hoped he'd moved past this. "You cannot break Mummy's pearls or your sister will never forgive you."

James looks up from the paper, startled, and stares at her from across the table. "Something I should know about, Evans?"

"What?"

"You just told Harry his _sister _would never—"

"Oh!" she laughs, swallowing down her toast. "_Hypothetical_ sister...you know, to give these to?"

"Right. The color returns to his face, but then he asks, "How hypothetical though?"

"I was just teasing Harry, James—"

"I know you were, but have you ever thought about it?"

"Well, yeah... Why?"

"Well, why not? What else have we got to do?"

It is Lily's turn to startle, and she stares at him, waiting for further elaboration.

"Do you really want to wait until the war's over?" he presses. "We can't put our lives on hold."

Funny, _that_. Their lives are absolutely on hold. This—their family—is, perhaps, the one thing they _can_ control.

"Do you _want_ another one?"

"Maybe," says James, shrugging, taking a sip of his tea—which he keeps far out of Harry's reach—and rambles into it. "I dunno. I grew up alone, you know, but I always pictured..._more..." _

He looks up at her.

"I don't want Harry to grow up alone."

"Neither do I," Lily replies, "I don't either. I just..."

"Same," confirms James.

"Look, love, nothing to be decided today. Not like I'm going to shag you right here."

James smirks at her, and she blushes and smiles, replaying a particular memory in her mind.

"I mean," he amends, "not with Harry awake and everything."

"Batty'll be over in an hour," she reminds him.

"Right. I'll take Harry now and get breakfast cleaned off." Harry coos as James scoops him out of the high chair and carries him into the hall.

"Oi, I nearly forgot," calls James. She rises from the table and pokes her head out of the kitchen. He is leaning over the banister, staring down at her. Harry, sitting on his shoulders, cackles madly.

James grins at her. "Happy Halloween."

-ooo00O00oooo-

No one pays any mind to the pearls around Lily's neck, but Mary knows better.

Her best mate in the world—her _sister_—is gone. The world is celebrating, but she hasn't stopped crying for three days.

She sits next to Remus, who has lost three brothers in as many days, and she feels guilty for her pain.

Lily is sleeping, unknowing, in a box at the front of this awful, god forsaken church, and Lily's pearls aren't supposed to be buried with her.

But she can't bring herself to reach in and take them off—not even for Harry, that darling boy.

Harry, who is stuck with that wretch of a sister.

Harry, who she doubts she'll ever see again.

It's wrong—it's _all_ bloody wrong, and Mary is powerless to stop it.

But she can do this one thing, so she reaches down, and kisses Lily's cheek. She carefully unclasps the necklace, and slips it into her pocket.

One day, Mary promises herself, she'll see him—Harry. When he's older, perhaps, and give him the pearls. More importantly, she'll give him his mother's stories that go along with them.


End file.
